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Monday, January 18, 2010

Blah blah blah

I feel like I’ve been wasting bandwidth lately with my blog. I haven’t had much to say of any use lately. I feel like my brain isn’t working as well as it once did.

I had it in my head that I was going to get back to telling my story – the one I started, about my pregnancy and everything. But I couldn’t remember a few things I wanted to talk about, so I went back to the private blog I kept during my pregnancy. I read through some of what I wrote. It depressed me. I found what I was looking for, though, so I went back to my blog archives, to see where I’d left off. Which proved to be something of a mistake. I read through what I wrote right after placement, and it took me back. It was like being there – or then, rather – all over again. I lost it. I cried.

I couldn’t finish what I started writing. I just couldn’t. Even though what I was writing about had nothing to do with the night I placed.

So I changed my tactic. I felt like I needed to finish up a few things to do with H’s mother. So I started to write about that. The words weren’t coming out like I wanted them to. I wasn’t making sense. And reading back through the harassing e-mail I got, I cried again.

I decided I'd turn my pent-up energy into something positive, and write something for birth moms about how to find the right family, or something for families to help them know what birth moms might look for in a profile. I got writer's block. The words weren't coming out right and I wasn't making sense.

I thought then that maybe I’d just write about how much I missed Roo. But I’ve done so much of that. Sometimes it feels like that’s all I do. I write about how much I miss her, or I whine about how people stink sometimes. I’m getting sick of myself.

What to do? I don’t know anymore. I know I need to finish telling my story, about my pregnancy and how I came to choose adoption. I need to do it for Roo. It’s her story as much as it is mine. But how can I finish when it hurts so much? I’m sick of hurting.

I miss Roo like crazy. There, I said it. I haven't seen her in over a month and I don't know when I'm going to see her again and I hate that. I wish I could just hold her for an hour or two, I think I'd feel better. I've been trying to console myself with pictures and videos, but they're all at least two weeks old. I want to see her now. I want to see how she's changed and grown in two weeks. I want to kiss her soft cheeks and rock her until she falls asleep in my arms.

I miss being her mommy. Crazy as it sounds, I also sort of miss the first couple of weeks right after placement. I was spoiled then - I got pictures and e-mail almost every day. It's harder now, not getting pictures and updates as often. In some of the adoption education stuff I've done I've heard couples or ARs ask about pictures and letters, and how much is too much. I don't know if there could be too much. I don't think there's such a thing as too much.

It's so hard to communicate effectively as a birth mom. There always worries and concerns. You don't want to be pushy or obnoxious intrusive or be seen as a burden, as someone else who needs taking care of. You don't want to be inconsiderate of an adoptive couple by bothering them all the time for pictures or information. Me, for instance, I don't even call P and M, even though I have their number. I always feel like calling would be rude because what if I call at a bad time? I don't want them to feel like they have to talk to me just because I called. I don't know when's a good time or a bad time, especially with 2 small children in the house. So I stick to e-mail.

We need to have a special birth mom group meeting to talk about communication. Adoption forms relationships unlike any others. It's hard to know what's appropriate and what's just obnoxious. I wonder if I err too much on the side of caution. And then I worry that I'm coming off as passive-aggressive by blogging about things instead of talking about them with people. I hope not.

But the fact is that I am probably the least confrontative person on the planet. I shared a dorm with a roommate who didn't ever clean up or bathe or do laundry because I didn't want to hurt her feelings or offend her by saying anything. I worry that because my mouth works faster than my brain, I'm going to say the wrong thing and ruin the few decent relationships I have in my life.

I've been in therapy for four years. You'd think I'd have things figured out better by now. And when I go to see John and he asks how things are going, I can't think of anything to say. When I'm there, I feel pretty good, like things are going well. It's only later that I think of things I need to talk about. I've tried writing things down and taking the list with me to therapy, but I get there and I look at my list and I feel stupid, or that the things I wrote down are stupid, so I don't talk about things. Part of it is that my therapist is a member of a different church, and I worry that if I say the wrong thing, he'll think less of my church or LDSFS or something like that.

I am so glad I get to go to the temple soon. I have so much going on in my head that I feel more and more every day that I really need the peace and comfort that the temple brings. I wish I could go today. Maybe I'd get some answers.

2 comments:

I have been reading your blog for awhile now. I think it is okay to miss Roo and you shouldn't feel bad about sharing that. I can tell that you try to be very open and honest when it comes to sharing about your adoption. I think that the sadness is an important part of your journey. In addition, it helps to educate other young mothers that are considering adoption as an option. When they read your blog, they get a true sense of the sadness AND the joy that you feel about your adoption. NEVER feel bad about being honest, okay?

You did a very selfless thing placing your daughter with her parents. I am sure that they understand the sacrifice that you made so that your daughter could become their daughter. They might not have time to read your blog, or they might choose not to. They might not have any idea how much you are missing Roo. I think you should give them a call or send them an e-mail and see about arranging a little playdate or something. :0)

You get to go to the temple soon? That is awesome. I hope it's not too much longer. I love to go to the temple. I can feel so much peace there.

We used to worry abotu how much would be too much to share in an open adoption. Since reading your blog, we have decided taht those first few weeks, no matter how tired we are, we will email at least a picture a day and hopefully a short message with it. We hope that by doing that our birth mom can find comfort in seeing her child in a loving home doing well. Even if the emails start to taper off after a few months, we will still do our best to send them weekly. Hubs has been so cute about it. He's asked me to teach him to download pictures to the computer and email them so he can do it if I'm too tired.

We are also hoping for monthly visits. We live about 2 hours apart, but we hope we can go visit often.

Thanks for always sharing your honest feelings. It has opened my eyes so much and I'm so glad I found this blog before placement.

Me Me Me

My name is Jill. I had a baby girl, Roo, on July 7th, 2009. I handed her to her mommy and daddy on September 9th, 9 weeks later.
This blog is my attempt to make sense of things and it is my hope that when Roo is older, she'll read it, and maybe she'll understand.